Quincy program helps children

Survey shows drop in binge drinking, academic failure

QUINCY - Quincy's eighth grade students reported they binge drank less, had a higher commitment to school and lower academic failure, according to Communities That Care survey.

The program, which started in 2003, directs three programs designed to prevent youth problems such as dropping out of school, drug and alcohol use and violence an teen pregnancy. Communities That Care directs three programs to accomplish those goals.

"Think back to when you were a teen, preteen," said Ray Horodowicz with the Communities That Care "This (is about) all the changes you were going through, puberty, you were probably getting a little more independent … Chances are somewhere in those first couple years, you were in a situation at least once where you had to make a choice. Hopefully when those situations came up you were able to make the right choice."

Communities That Care's goal is to reduce the negative influences in children's lives while increasing the positive influences.

"We're trying to build up the positive things in the child's family, throughout the community, within the school and between their peers and friends," Horodowicz said. "While we're building up those positive things, we're trying to chip away at the negative things."

The group surveyed sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grade students every two years as part of a University of Washington study comparing the use of the Communities That Care program with other prevention programs. The study was funded with a grant from the National Institute of Health.

They chose to based their goals off of eighth grader because it was suggested at the beginning of the process, Horodowicz said.

In most cases, the risk factors have decreased compared to the 2002 results, according to the survey results. Some of the largest decreases were:

• Binge drinking dropped from 20.2 percent to 13.3 percent.

• Low commitment to school dropped from 61.6 percent to 43.6 percent.

• Academic failure dropped from 68.5 percent to 54.9 percent.

Almost all of the risk factors and problem behavior factors were below the goals that were set, except for friends' antisocial behavior, which jumped by about 13 percent from the 2006 survey. Low commitment to school also rose about 8 percent from the 2006 survey.

"We're not going to panic because we don't know if that's a one year blip or if it's a sign of a trend going up," Horodowicz said. "We're looking at trends over time."

An assessment work group, comprised of members from the department of health, a Quincy police sergeant, reading coach, a youth member and a staff member at Quincy Valley Medical Center, is examining statistics for the other ages. He said the group will meet again before the end of the year to establish a schedule for analyzing the results.

Horodowicz said they are examining the goals the group set in 2002. They also are examining the categories they created at the beginning of the program.

"We were still pretty young when we started (the study)," he said. "We're going to be prioritizing, coming up with some new guidelines and setting new goals. We want something realistic."